Grants to help East Side’s culinary water

Every year, the Mountainland Association of Governments awards grants for community development projects. This year, Summit and Wasatch Counties are expected to receive around $400,000 and the two applicants for the grants are both looking to upgrade culinary water on the East Side.

The Hoytsville Pipe and Water Company and the Peoa Pipeline Company both applied for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds for 2014.

Sue Follett, secretary-treasurer for Hoytsville Pipe and Water, said at Wednesday’s County Council meeting that they would use the funds to replace all of their water meters.

"We never read [water] meters — we just did a monthly fee. Our focus this year is charging overage fees to make it fair," Follett said, adding that about one-third of the company’s meters were not operating.

Hoytsville Pipe and Water will contract with Geary Construction, Inc., for the first phase of the water-line upgrade. Based on county documents, their total expected costs for the project, including labor, total $218,742.

At the Council meeting, however, Hoytsville Pipe and Water said they would cover the cost of labor, so their final requested amount was not given.

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Council member Dave Ure said he is confident that the installation of new water meters and the charging of overage fees would serve as excellent methods of educating customers on responsible water use.

The second CDBG grant application, from the Peoa Pipeline Company, totaled $170,000. Contracted through Horrocks Engineering, the project’s costs are mainly for 1,400 feet of 10-inch PVC water line needed to extend from the 180,000-gallon tank the company built four years ago with the same grant money. The company will also install three new fire hydrants as well.

"We’ve found ourselves in the situation where we put new pressure and a new system on top of our old distribution system and our expense involved in making repairs due to blowouts caused us to now want to chase our water leakage as well," said Peoa Pipeline President Greg White.

The County Council decided to sponsor both projects at Wednesday’s meeting. Once the applications are submitted, a Mountainland committee will review them in March, submitting their results to an Executive Council in April. In May, the applicants will be notified of the awards.